Insurance is important, but you have to choose carefully – 01/25/2024 – É Logo Ali
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Taking out travel insurance is something that is reasonably common and welcome in the world of conventional tourism. But when it comes to adventure tourism, choosing a policy can be much more complicated than it seems. Making sure that, if necessary, rescue can be carried out by a helicopter is essential, as discovered by a colleague who climbed Mount Roraima with me and twisted his knee, making it impossible for him to descend on foot.
When the blog started to find out what insurance was available in the country, the first step, obviously, was to look for the large operators in the national market. And, surprise: none admitted to having any product for this specific segment. Bradesco, Allianz and Zurich, for example, thanked the interest, but through their advisors informed that they would not participate in the agenda as they do not operate in this area. Itaú and Porto Seguro did not even return the emails.
The most objective return was from Mag Seguros, which has an underwriting specialist (a type of analysis of the profile of the potential insured) to assess the viability of each contract, with protection for death or disability. “We are one of the few insurance companies in the country that accept coverage for the death of mountaineering athletes, even for those professionals who venture on expeditions to the Himalayas”, said Denise Amaral, the company’s underwriting manager.
“We accept the client based on the answers they give us based on a series of questions”, explains the specialist, who had to delve into the world of mountaineering to understand the language of her potential clients and, mainly, the statistics on mountaineering accidents. each modality.
“If you practice mountaineering and I don’t, you have a different level of risk, and therefore you will pay a different premium than a person of the same age, of the same sex, who does not have the same level of risk”, he adds, explaining that, as information about the activity to be insured arrives, including in addition to personal details, even the equipment that the person will use in the undertaking, the calculation will be made until the final value is reached, the limits of which Denise does not wanted to declare. “Each case is different, there are many variants”, she said. It won’t be cheap — but what is the price of your life?
So says Indian climber Anurag Maloo, miraculously rescued alive from a crevasse in the Anapurna mountain, in the Himalayas, after being trapped in the ice for three days. He told the blog that he paid a policy of US$1,000 (around R$4,950) to the Indian insurance company Adventure Sports Covery, which paid for two rescue attempts by helicopter, plus highly complex medical expenses in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, the an undisclosed total cost.
It is worth mentioning that, since I started researching the subject, I have been bombarded by advertisements from international insurance companies that operate to a greater or lesser extent in the segment. The most frequent one, which even appears when I look for a cake recipe, is the Australian company World Nomads, which has been on the market since 2002. In response to the blog’s contact, the company’s representative in Brazil sent the website links (in Portuguese), explaining that everything would be there. And, from what we can see, although the company accepts coverage contracts for accidents in 180 sports, in terms of mountaineering the limit is anything up to 6,000 meters of altitude. Most of the planet’s great mountains, then, are beyond your reach, but most of the less ambitious trails and peaks can be included, with the advantage of the quote being made by an application in real time. So let’s go back to the cake recipe.
The blog asked those who are used to expeditions in extreme environments, such as professional mountaineer Pedro Hauck, if and how they advise their guides when it comes to taking out insurance. “In Aconcagua, for example, the highest peak in the Andes, insurance that covers high mountain rescue with helicopter evacuation is mandatory,” he replied, believing there is a lack of players in the market.
“There are few insurance companies that cover adventure sports and very few that insure altitude”, complains Hauck. “Of course it’s a very risky thing, but insurance is for risk and, if we evaluate the numbers, there aren’t that many rescues that occur in relation to the number of practitioners”, he ponders, who takes out individual insurance from the American Alpine Club, a club of American mountaineering that offers several options to its members around the world, including even a special plan for those who want to venture to the Arctic Circle.
One of the market options most cited by the mountaineers the blog spoke to was GTA (Global Travel Assistance), which covers athletes in amateur practices through contracts with travel agencies. According to information sent by the company’s advisors, demand for this product profile has grown at an average rate of 15% per year. “Our objective is to encourage sales with a more consultative nature and to change the culture of travel insurance in the country”, defines the note. The GTA offers plans that offer medical and hospital coverage between R$6,000 and R$60,000 for trips in Brazil, and from US$12,000 (approximately R$59,400) to US$330,000 (R$1, 64 million) on international itineraries. The advice here is to carefully assess whether your problem could lead, at most, to a simple dressing in an emergency room in the country, or require more sophisticated care somewhere in the Himalayas.
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